Dean Russell: First, may I align myself with all the tributes to Sir David Amess? His was a life unfairly cut short, but his memory will live on forever. Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank all the staff: the Clerks, the Doorkeepers, the Speaker’s team—everyone who keeps democracy alive behind the scenes; it is hugely appreciated.
Thanks is the theme of my speech, which I will do my best to give as quickly as possible. When I stood for election in 2019, I had a series of key pledges, and I am pleased to say that, this year, I will deliver on every single one of them. While many politicians like to take all the credit for themselves, I know that this has been done through teamwork, and with the support of others. That is why I want to spend my time thanking the people who made fulfilling the pledges possible.
The first pledge was perhaps the most prominent: securing the funding for Watford General Hospital. My thanks go to the leadership team at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, including—but not exclusively—Matthew Coats and Phil Townsend, who have been phenomenal in making sure that the plans were achievable and ambitious, and that we secured the funding. They have helped me be an absolute pain in the neck to Ministers, from the Prime Minister down, every single day, so that they knew what we wanted, and we were able to achieve it.
I came into Parliament with a challenge to tackle the stigma around mental ill health. I launched an initiative to train 1,000 people in mental health first aid awareness; I would love to go into much more detail on that, and the work that I am doing. I give particular thanks to the team at Watford and West Herts chamber of commerce, especially Chris, Saffron and Lee, who have been phenomenal in making sure that we are hitting that target. I have good news coming on that later in the year, but I do not want to jump too far ahead on that.
On the national scale, there is my work on the First-Aid (Mental Health) Bill. I am also trying to encourage the Government to look at how we could change the rules  to ensure better parity between physical and mental health in the Health and Safety Executive guidelines. I have been very grateful to the Ministers who have met me to discuss that; to those across the UK who are tackling suicide prevention; to the team behind Baton of Hope; to the team who worked with me on the “Where’s your head at?” campaign, for which I am proud to be an ambassador; and to Dr Alex George and Chris Murray, who have been phenomenal this year. They have really helped and supported me, and driven me forward to deliver on my promises.
I said that I wanted to tackle rough sleeping. I am pleased to say that, over the past three and a half years, I think around £5 million—possibly a bit less or a bit more—for this issue has gone to Watford. I have really fought for that and worked with Government to achieve it. It meant that, in Watford, we went from having 70 to 80 people on the streets every night over decades, to zero at one point in the past couple of years. I think we are at around five to 10 people now; one person on the streets is too many, so we need to make sure that we support them.
Yes, I could get the Government funding; I could get support for the issue, and push and champion it; but really, this action was sparked by a gentleman called Matthew Heasman at New Hope UK, a fantastic local charity, and Rob Edmonds. Matthew got me involved from day one of the pandemic. He helped me to get the Government to make sure that we could get everyone in and that has continued. The team at One YMCA have been phenomenal in making sure that we deliver on that and have a process that really supports people; Guy Foxell and Mark Turner enabled that.
Outside Watford, there are, sadly, still more rough sleepers. So I am working with Hand on Heart, which is a fantastic charity that works from Watford, to support others in other constituencies. On business, I would love to go more into the list of businesses that I have visited, but the big one for me was making sure that we supported our hospitality sector. Last year, there was a risk to Pryzm nightclub, which I held a debate on in this Chamber and I also presented a petition on it. The nightclub was saved, thanks to the work that I did with the team there, who were phenomenal, especially David Vickery; they were incredible. The reason that work was so important is that it supported our night-time economy. It protected our taxi drivers, making sure that they had people to drive home every night. We have about 1,500 to 3,000 people coming into Watford just to use the night-time economy, and Pryzm nightclub is at the heart of that. Even one of our own Doorkeepers met his wife there, so there is definitely a Westminster link there. Also challenging from a business perspective was making sure that we continued to fight the nonsense from the Mayor of London around ULEZ, because that will cost my constituents a lot of money, especially those who are struggling.
On tackling crime, I am pleased to say that, thanks to the work with the local police and our police and crime commissioner, we have a new police station coming later in the year, which is fantastic news. Our current police station is in a place called Shady Lane, so I am a bit upset that we are losing the Shady Lane police station, but the new one will be much more modern and suitable for our fantastic new police officers and our fantastic team.
I would also like to formally welcome our new police chief inspector, Andy Wiseman, and all of the new police officers who were secured across Hertfordshire—more than 300 extra police officers, I think, which is fantastic. I also thank them for the support that they have given me when I have been out on dawn raids. There is always a bit of a panic when they say the address that the police are going to raid, because there is the worry that your house will be mentioned. Thankfully, that has not happened so far. It has been phenomenal going out with the police, often in the middle of the night, to see what they do to keep us safe and to make sure that, behind the scenes, the bad people do not get away with what they want to do. It is incredible work.
I wish to thank everyone, including students from various schools, who have been part of Dean’s green team, working on the environment. One of the big pledges that was made during the election was to end the use of single-use plastic. I know that that is coming through later this year, which is phenomenal. The Environment Act 2021 and all the work that was done at COP26 have been so important for all of us around the world, but especially for my constituents in Watford, who are very caring about our local environment.
I have previously talked a lot about our local community and the charities that do so much. They include One Vision, Watford Workshop, Community Connect, Step2Skills, Alternatives, the Random Café, Watford Women’s Centre and Watford Interfaith Association. There are so many I could list. They are all phenomenal, but what they are really good at is working together. That is what is so important. As we look at community, it is about the threads that combine us into a tapestry of the story of our town and our community. We also have every religion in Watford—it is one of the wonderful things about our interfaith community. I will not mention any of the faiths now, because I know that I will miss out about five as I try to rush through my points.
If I may, I will encourage all to watch “Mission Impossible”. It is a bit of a turn-off, but I said at the start that this was an impossible mission for me. During the pandemic, I was very proud that “Mission Impossible”, which is in cinemas now, was partly filmed in Leavesden. I helped to change the rules with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office to make sure that film doubles could change, so that Tom Cruise could go around the world and get the rest of the world to follow our rules, which meant that the film could be filmed and be in our cinemas today. That was a massive change, and I thank the team in Government at the time for enabling that to happen.
As with everyone else, I could not do this job without my team. We have worked on more than 20,000 cases. I thank Tory, Michelle, Jane, Abby, Imogen and now Jonathan for all their hard work. The surgeries that we hold and the work that we do behind the scenes are just phenomenal.
My final thanks go to two people, without whom I could not do this speech: my parents. It is their emerald anniversary today—55 years. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.